ANDROMA
IN THE YEARS since she’d escaped Arcardius, Andi had never returned to the Phelexos System. Not once. She’d feared that if she did, she would finally get caught and face the sentence she’d been running from all this time.
The bottle of Griss she’d shared with Lira last night had helped her forget about that fear—for a short while at least. But then sleep had stolen her away, and with it, the nightmares came lurking.
This time, they had been of Valen.
You killed her, he’d whispered into her ear as he hovered over her with a blade poised above her heart. Now you will suffer her fate.
His eyes bored down into hers, and as she screamed and begged him to release her, blood poured from his lips.
Even now, as Andi sat on the bridge beside Dex, she couldn’t shake the feeling of cold dread that swept over her at the thought of the dream.
That, and the pressing nausea that came along with a wicked hangover—not only from the Griss, but from the Jurum she’d so foolishly guzzled at Revalia.
After everything that had happened on Adhira, she was grateful they’d found a way out. As soon as Alfie had dispatched the New Vedan guard, they’d fired up the engines and gotten the hell out of the desert, blasting through the atmosphere, then immediately soaring into hyperspace. The escape had been a quick one, the other Xen Pterran ships unable to track them, thanks to Alfie’s scrambling the tracking systems on board.
After Andi’s initial shock over his unexpected role as rescuer had passed, she’d questioned the AI until she’d nearly run out of breath.
“My mission is to ensure Mr. Valen Cortas returns home,” Alfie had said as Dex piloted them out of Adhira, wide awake from an adrenaline pill they’d been fortunate to find in a med kit on board. “When the Rhymore guards heard of the attack in the desert, I had no choice but to embark on a journey to find you.”
“But how did you find us?” Gilly had asked.
Alfie’s shrug had been almost sentient. “Fellibrags have a heightened sense of smell. So I used Havoc to determine your precise location. I also determined that Gilly would be most displeased if I forgot him.”
Gilly had squeaked happily and snuggled the orange creature. “What a good little fellibrag you are!”
“And Alara?” Andi had asked. “Do you know what happened to her?”
The AI’s white face had tilted sideways. “Alara is not my mission, Androma Racella. Therefore, I am unaware of her current whereabouts.”
Alfie had then gotten straight to work on Lon’s injury, stabilizing him with the med kit. The wound from the rifle shot was deep, the bullet thick and ugly, as if it were made from salvaged scrap steel. If infection hadn’t set in yet, it likely would soon.
“He will need immediate care upon our arrival on Arcardius,” Alfie had said, his gears whirring as he stood and pressed the med kit into Andi’s hands.
Dex had been right about the stolen ship. It shot through the galaxy, rocketing toward Arcardius. Despite that, time had seemed to slow, as if every second was counting against them. Knowing the journey would be a long one, Andi had joined Lira in the storage room.
Now, finally, as flashes of starlight streaked past the viewport, Dex pulled back on the hyperdrive and the ship was flung out of hyperspace just at the edge of the Phelexos System.
“Home sweet home,” Dex said, glancing sideways at Andi.
Green blood had dried on his forehead, and a nasty bruise had spread across the entirety of his left cheek. His usual grin was missing.
“What’s the matter, Baroness?” he asked.
Andi was too tired—and too ill—to deal with him right now. They hadn’t talked about the almost-kiss they’d shared during Revalia. Andi wanted to pass it off as a side effect of Jurum, and yet...as she looked at him, heat flooded to her cheeks.
She turned away, pressing her fingertips to her temples.
The murmur of a faraway voice on the com sounded behind her, where Alfie was busy communicating with the transportation command center on Arcardius, warning them they were in a stolen Xen Pterran ship.
“Sir, I am on direct orders from General Cortas,” Alfie’s calm voice said. “I am detecting tonal suggestions of annoyance. Shall I inform the general that my mission cannot be completed because of your interference?”
More murmurs, then Alfie glanced at Dex and said, “I have secured clearance to approach Arcardius. He also offered to polish my metal platings free of charge, should I ever need it.”
“You know something, AI?” Dex asked, smiling through his split lip. “You’re beginning to grow on me.”
“I cannot grow,” Alfie said. “It is not within my capability to do so.”
Andi let the sound of their voices fade as she stared out the viewport.
They passed the swirling colors of the gas giant, Pegasi, and weaved around New Veda before flying between the two moons of Arcardius.
On the other side of the moons, Andi could just make out the lush blue and green hues of her home world. A line of sleek Explorer ships waited for them—their escort down to the planet’s surface. She tapped her foot anxiously as they approached their destination. Coming from a mission in a system that was supposed to be her enemy, she couldn’t help but question if she was about to enter another territory more dangerous than Olen. They had escaped from the atrocities on Adhira, but who knew what horrors might still lie ahead?
Andi felt selfish thinking these thoughts when she’d just come from a peaceful planet that was now immersed in a bloody battle. She felt even more selfish for wishing the news would distract General Cortas from any attempt to alter the deal he’d made with them. She just wanted to drop Valen off and be on her way back to Adhira to get her ship.
If there was still a ship to retrieve.
Dex angled them toward Arcardius, and Andi allowed herself a moment to stare out at the inky black beyond. Before this hellish journey began, she’d thought the stars were mocking her. But now, for the first time in a long while, she felt as if she’d surprised the stars.
As if, despite what had happened worlds away, they shone a little brighter, encouraging her to be strong in the face of the unknown.
It was that thought that slightly eased the tension in her shoulders and loosened the tightness in her chest.
“Well, this is an inviting welcome,” Dex said sarcastically as the Explorers surrounded them, two on each side and one in the back. They then proceeded to herd them down to the planet.
Andi never thought this day would come, had fully believed that the last time she would see Arcardius was through the rear-cam of the ship she’d escaped on. But there it was before her now, a ball of swirling blues, purples, pinks and greens, not a single scar of white clouds obscuring the colors. The purple salt lakes glimmered like gemstones from afar, dwarfed by bright blue oceans that surrounded the lush green land.
There was the massive, half-moon-shaped island on the southern tip of the main continent, where she’d vacationed with her mother and father as a child. The sea from afar looked just as blue as it had when she’d splashed her feet in the cool water, running up and down the diamond-littered shores in search of the largest, shiniest one.
Above it, the main continent of Ae’ri showed itself off in shades of deepest emerald, scattered with shadows from the mountains and the floating gravarocks hanging in the air as if held by strings.
The largest of them, a rugged snow-capped mountain, held countless memories for Andi.
She had flown below it with her father on a day trip years ago. Andi could remember how she’d pressed her face to the glass of the tour ship, her breath fogging up the view, and dreamed of one day soaring her own ship to that very mountain. A soldier on leave, exploring the most hard-to-reach places of Arcardius and the worlds beyond.
Now she was the captain of a starship she was too scared to fly. She was doing more than she’d ever dreamed of doing, but not quite in the way she’d planned.
A voice suddenly buzzed into the overhead com, drawing Andi’s attention from the planet back to the dash.
“This is Patrol 73 paging the Marauders. Do you copy?”
She tapped the rear-cam and saw the telltale form of an Explorer Patrol ship looming not far behind.
“Marauders to Patrol 73. Do we have clearance to enter?”
Static crackled on the line. For a moment, her gut screamed at her to beg Dex to turn the ship around, soar back out into the skies and hide herself and her crew in the shadows of the nearest moon.
Before she could do anything rash, the voice on the com spoke.
“Patrol 73 to the Marauders. Initiate hover mode.”
Dex pressed a button next to the throttle. “Hover control activated,” he responded. Soon the prox alarm went off, signaling that the Patrol ships had latched on to theirs. They escorted the Marauders to the planet’s surface, looking like monsters dropping from the night sky.
“Welcome home, Androma,” Andi whispered to herself.